YASSER ABBAS

Yasser Abbas - Tom Gross (Wall Street Journal)
On the very day that five Israelis were murdered and over 60 injured in a suicide bombing outside a shopping mall in Netanya earlier this month, the official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had approved fresh financial assistance to the families of suicide bombers. Altogether, the families of these so-called martyrs and of those wounded in terrorist attempts or held in Israeli jails might receive $100 million.

For over a year now, since Abbas succeeded Arafat, many in the West have done their utmost to "explain" or ignore Abbas's failings. His outright refusal to confront and disarm terrorists, in violation of the Road Map, hardly registers anymore in the Western media. However, the media also give very little idea of the extent to which the PA continues to glorify terrorists.

This month, the PA renamed the Rafah border crossing "in honor of Shahid (martyr) Al-Agha," who murdered five Israelis in a suicide bombing there in December 2004. There is the soccer tournament named in honor of the terrorist who murdered 30 people at a Passover celebration in Netanya, and a girls' high school named by the PA Ministry of Education after a female terrorist who murdered 36 Israeli civilians. A poetry collection published by the PA Ministry of Culture honors "the Rose of Palestine," a suicide terrorist who killed 21 at a restaurant in Haifa.

Until Palestinian attitudes change, the Israelis have no choice but to put considerations of security first.

See also Irrelevant Abbas - Dan Schueftan
The recent local elections in the West Bank prove once again just how fallacious claims are about chances for an agreement with the Palestinians. The writer is assistant director of the Center for National Security Research at Haifa University. (Ynet News)